Problem reporting systems or service management systems receive problems entered by support professionals into the service management system or messages sent directly from computing systems experiencing a problem to the service management system.
In response to the received problem, the service management system generates a ticket, which is used to track the problem. Each ticket includes data fields, which include unstructured or structured content. For example, a person's name or identifier of a computing system reporting the problem is recorded in a structured field identifying a source of the reported problem. Tickets generated in response to received machine messages, such as self-diagnosing computer systems, include structured data that is readily interpretable. For example, a security server sends an email message to the ticket system with structured content the security server is experiencing high central processing unit (CPU) utilization.
Problem descriptions entered by support professionals include unstructured data input, such as a string of alphanumeric text. Examples of problem descriptions include “My email is down,” “I can't access the Internet,” “My browser doesn't work,” and “I forgot my password.” The unstructured problem description is not a precise statement of the actual problem. Rather the unstructured problem description includes statements of symptoms or environmental impacts that are used by the ticket management systems and/or system professionals to understand what the user is experiencing, identify an actual problem and offer possible solutions.